Is accountancy facing a skills crisis?

In a recent BBC Bitesize survey of more than 4000 13–16-year-olds, doctor, engineer and teacher were the top three job choices. The NHS, Google and Apple ranked the top three employers to work for. There wasn’t a professional services firm in sight, and no aspiring accountants or auditors, at least in the top 10. 

Perhaps the profession’s misunderstood or perceived as offering old-fashioned, unfun jobs. Just under half of respondents (47%) felt university was their preferred pathway to employment. A quarter put apprenticeship as their route to career success. Encouragingly, 85% of teenagers surveyed were confident they could get their desired job.

We need to pay attention to this – we need to let students know how interesting, varied, exciting and dynamic our profession is. The oldest of those interviewed could join our industry as soon as 2027. If a current 13-year-old gets their university choice, it may be 2033 by the time they join one of our graduate programmes.

Do we face a looming skills crisis where no-one wants to become an accountant or auditor anymore? 

Why isn’t accountancy a top choice? 

Most mid-tier accountancy firms don’t seem troubled by the issue. ICAEW’s own research shows only 3% of firms rank trainee recruitment in their top three concerns. The same research shows a population bulge of 8 million more 20–29-year-olds entering the workforce in England by 2030, an 7.6% increase on 2024. 

Research by High Fliers showed a healthy graduate job market in their 2024 report, with over 6,000 recruited into accounting and professional services; that’s nearly twice as many graduates who joined the next two biggest industry areas of public sector (3,720) and technology (3,100). 

If there’re plenty of roles going and plenty of young people to fill them, why aren’t they considering accountancy as a career destination? 

We need to shift perceptions and shout about the good we do. If we’ve ever just been number crunching, asset registering bean-counters buried in spreadsheet formulae, now we need to be loud and clear that’s no longer what accountancy’s about.

We’re trusted business advisers, future-thinkers, transformation strategists and solution creators. We’re diverse and inclusive. We welcome colleagues from all backgrounds, with or without degrees, who demonstrate a range of capabilities from emotional intelligence to creative problem solving. 

It’s difficult to be what you can’t see. Are we doing enough to showcase this diversity? 

Work experience is one way to understand opportunities. AAT research shows 77% of young people still do work experience. While 50% of this group have secured placements through school or college, just over a third (34%) found roles through the family and friends’ network of ‘who you know’.

This is increasingly seen as unfair and limiting opportunities to the best connected. Work experience also presents a cost to students, so it’s rapidly becoming a barrier to seeing what’s possible.

41% have less than £8 per day for travel, food or suitable clothing and 8% can’t participate unless expenses are covered. There’s opportunity to further support young talent. 

Challenges and opportunities 

Once you make it into industry, what then? According to ICAEW’s 2025 report, retaining qualified people’s a key challenge, especially with the attraction of alternative paths outside of practice and many core skills learned being transferrable to other careers. 

Graduates are coming in with no intention of staying, noted one firm, and LinkedIn reports show young professionals expecting to have twice as many jobs across their careers compared with the same demographic 15 years ago.

Despite this, Skills England still identifies Accounting and Finance Technicians as one of the most critically in demand occupations in 2024. 

There’s huge opportunity in future services, with new roles to be created around strategic, advisory and operational change as we transform to a low carbon, net-zero economy. 

These ESG (environment, social and governance) services require new ways of thinking. They offer plenty of options for firms to develop expertise in data analysis, reporting, assurance and regulatory planning to support our clients building sustainable, responsible and resilient businesses.   

Future-proofing the profession 

ICAEW identified two key priorities mid-tier firms seek to leverage to retain their qualified workforce. AI – the digitisation and automation of tasks – isn’t the solution for all challenges, but it’s an enabler in handling the repetitive, routine, time-consuming tasks, allowing employees to focus on other, more skilled activities. 

People still need to understand what’s happening, how and why. Digital literacy remains an essential skill for the UK workforce (as defined by Skills England), alongside creative thinking, teamworking, leadership, numeracy and literacy. 

It’s comforting to see the second priority for firms is investing in the continued professional development of their people, ensuring their skills remain relevant in these areas and developing growth opportunities such as sustainability, ESG and data analytics.   

Are firms doing this, or just talking about it? ACCA’s 2025 Global Talent Trends report suggested half their respondents were concerned they’re not developing skills for the future. Less than a third (32%) said they were learning AI skills.

This must be alarming news to training providers like First Intuition, where CEO Martin Taylor has recognised this shifting requirement to develop future-ready skills. His team’s built a training approach to help professionals embrace continuous learning outside purely technical capability, looking to a more holistic approach in collaboration, leadership through change, communicating complex information and building meaningful client relationships.  

By 2030, ICAEW “…envisages careers in the profession to be ever more specialised with deep domain expertise in areas such as AI-driven analytics and decision making, sustainability assurance and business transformation.” For firms to meet this expectation with the next generation of talent, we need to act now. 

Engaging and inspiring our next gen accountants 

Telling stories at a peer level is great way to inspire. At Moore Kingston Smith we use every opportunity for current trainees to speak to potential joiners, whether through student insight days, careers fairs or social media “a day in the life” type videos. Feedback tells us this is what resonates most with applicants to our programmes. 

Collaboration between firms and sharing of resources is also a great way to attract talent to our industry. Access Accountancy supports firms by creating work experience guidance and sharing best practice between firms. 

We should seek to make work experience as accessible as possible. Supporting students with lunch or travel bursaries opens the means to a much wider group. Virtual work experience with partners like SpringPod can extend reach significantly from the local office to a nationwide opportunity. This has been hugely successful for Moore Kingston Smith, providing work experience access to over 3,000 school students across the UK.    

Trainee pathways need clear opportunities. It’s not just the chartered end point, but the specialism opportunities which need to be built into progression. Life-long, holistic learning isn’t the domain of the already qualified. 

We need to look to all-round professional development to encompass STEM skills, incorporate AI & digital, build up leadership and creative thinking, and not leave teamwork and communication behind. Our internal training and collaboration with our training partners are essential to this.  

If we bring this back to where it started, show students who they can be, with more stories, role models and opportunities to experience it, then maybe following BBC Bitesize’s next survey we’ll earn a Blue Peter badge for promoting our industry as the place to build a career.